Macedonia gets help to stem migrant flows

AMSTERDAM — Macedonia is getting aid pledges from EU countries to slow the flow of migrants moving towards northern Europe, the country’s foreign minister said at an informal meeting of EU and regional foreign ministers on Saturday.

The meeting — which included ministers from Turkey, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia — also appealed to Turkey not to close its border to another wave of refugees fleeing an assault by troops loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, on the city of Aleppo.

The prospect of yet more people escaping the chaos of Syria to Turkey and then moving on towards Europe prompted some EU countries to try to shore up the bloc’s defenses in Macedonia. The country recorded 412,351 people passing through from June 2015 to mid-January.

“We have had a number of countries that have expressed a wish to send boats, police officers and equipment,” Nikola Poposki, the Macedonian foreign minister, told POLITICO at the end of the summit.

Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki arrives to take part in a EU foreign ministers meeting in Amsterdam. Epa/Emmanuel Dunand.

Greece has come under fire for its inability to properly control its maritime border with Turkey, and for allowing refugees to pass through the country with only a minimal amount of paperwork. That has led to frustrated EU countries helping Macedonia, Greece’s old enemy and not an EU member.

“If Greece is not ready or able to protect the Schengen zone and doesn’t accept any assistance from the EU, then we need another defense line, which is obviously Macedonia and Bulgaria,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at the meeting. “The EU is defenseless from the south.”

Pressure is growing on Greece. The Commission on Tuesday adopted a report proposing recommendations to address deficiencies in external border management. And some countries have been pushing to evict Greece from the Schengen zone, a step European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker does not support.

EU countries do not seem ready to kick out Greece. At a Wednesday meeting of EU ambassadors, southern countries like Italy, Malta and Spain, as well as some Nordic nations, wanted Greek efforts in dealing with the migration flow to be acknowledged while also addressing Greece’s shortcomings, two diplomats said.

“Member states have to decide on what to do next with Greece and not the Commission,” said a senior EU diplomat.

At the Saturday summit, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a “European” solution to the crisis, an idea backed by Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias. “These are complicated problems that require European solutions. No one should believe in a simple solution by isolating national states,” Kotzias told reporters.

“It cannot be that countries at the Baltic Sea decide alone on our border in southern Europe,” Kotzias said. “We protect the external borders as well as one can protect a maritime border.”

But many EU countries are not waiting for a European solution, instead reimposing border controls and endangering the functioning of the Schengen zone.

The stress on Greece is growing, especially in light of the recent advances by the Syrian military.

While Turkey has allowed refugees across the frontier over the past five years of the Syrian civil war, the current situation on the Turkish-Syrian border is unclear.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters that his country still has an “open border policy for these people fleeing from the aggression of the regime as well as from air strikes of Russia.” He added that “another 50,000 to 55,000 [Syrians] are on their way and we cannot leave them there.”

However, there are reports that the border is closed. EU ministers reminded Turkey of its moral and legal obligation to keep it open to those in need of protection.

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glasspix 1

Yet the Greeks keep ferrying them from Lesbos to the mainland and laugh watching the Germans, and the rest of us, get stuffed. This is Syriza’s payback time for the austerity forced on them by Merkel.

Posted on 2/6/16 | 9:27 PM CEST

Nick the Greek

FYRoM needs all the help it can get…so it’s nice to see Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic offering assistance to this newly-emergent, recently-established, EU aspirant country.

Helping FYRoM by calling it ‘Macedonia’ is counter productive, because there is an ongoing issue, still unresolved (long-running) name-dispute that exists between FYRoM and Greece. And to suggest that Macedonia is a long time enemy of Greece is mischievous and incorrect. Macedon is regional-historical part of Greece from since ancient times.

FYRoM deserves help to bring it into the European fold, it’s stated ambition and aspiration. The sooner the name-dispute resolves, the quicker FYRoM joins the Western-worlds most prestigious economic and security structures of the EU and NATO .

Posted on 2/6/16 | 9:39 PM CEST

Klaus Fröst

@glasspix 1.
Dumb Angela Merkel is going in March 30′. She is isolated. And probably Wolfgang Schäuble will be the next Chancellor. First move, he kick out the Greece of the euro and Schengen zone. And so, guess who will have the laugh last?

Posted on 2/6/16 | 11:59 PM CEST

charlie-papa

again Macedonia …unihistorical stubborn idiots
Those who destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria should undertake the burden to protect all those
migrants .
Instead those chickens remaint silent hiding behind and in times directing the far right extremists (racists, others) pointing fingers to Greece -scapegoat to everything happens…
Such notion for democracy and humanity reminds to the olders of us pre_war days of Hitler and if they insist for such kind of Eu its all yours and stuff it.

Posted on 2/7/16 | 9:59 AM CEST

Alexander the Macedonian

Nick at least we’re not going down the toilet like Greece is. Thank you EU for your help in closing the gates with Greece!

Posted on 2/8/16 | 4:15 AM CEST

charlie-papa

At least Alexander (the Great) was clever not like the Fyrom imbeciles .
Gates are closing both ways including Skopjans passage to the sea and trade